Disco, Disco, Disco! Another Group Messaging App Only Available In The US

SMS is not dead! ;-)

Disco is another group messaging app, this time provided by Google. I would love to be able to use it, but at this stage it is only available in the US! I guess this is as SMS costs prevent this from being a globally scalable solution? This is only an assumption, happy for it to be shot down!

Maybe Google could cover the messaging costs to make this truly global? The issue is though SMS is free to send in the states, the receiver pays. In the rest of the world though the sender pays. For me though, this should not prevent group messaging apps. The cost is not significant. In fact in most instances the cost comes from a Customers SMS allowances that most Customers don't completely consume. If they do, then the Customer can make the decision to be a group messaging player or not. Alternativly they can use their data tariff to consume group messaging via data trafifc.

Below is another screenshot from Android's Disco. I would love to be able to download and test and review the app, but alas, not being in the US I am not allowed to ;-)



I listened in to to the Why SMS Outranks Apps webinar on Thursday 2nd of June. There were some interesting stats raised:

• SMS sent via applications in 2010 - 208 billion (a lot!)
• SMS sent via applications in 2015 (projected) 534 billion (even more!)
• BBM has 40 million users globally! Hello!
• Kik has grows to 3 million users in 6 months!
• Kakao Talk has 13 million users in a year!
• T-Mobile Netherlands reports that 70% of its smartphone users had installed WhatsApp in 3 months! Hello!
• O2 has 2 million opted-in customers for mobile marketing and advertising.

Just a swathe of statistics that make for interesting reading. Well interesting reading for SMS junkies. ;-) There was a load more stats, however multitasking prevented me from keeping up. all very interesting stuff and more evidence that although smartphones are increasing in their market penetration, only SMS is a true distribution medium that can be used across almost every mobile.

One other stat from the webinar - it was stated that by 2015 smartphones would have 41% market penetration. Whoah! That's huge! Oh hang on, that means there's still 59% of phones globally that could also be served by SMS. That's quite a few phones to increase ones application reach! Hello! ;-)

That's all for now ;-). Oh that and perhaps once more SMS IS NOT DEAD! ;-)

Oh and perhaps a link back to Group Messaging Apps are This Years Check-In Apps. But Where Are The Mobile Networks ;-)

Have fun!

Cheers

m